A number of approaches exist for evaluating, measuring and/or expressing “walkability” of a particular region. Walkability may include various concepts, such as the quality and/or quantity of resources that support pedestrian travel (e.g., crosswalks, sidewalks, etc.), conditions that make pedestrian travel appealing and/or attractive (e.g., availability of parks or other destinations), etc. In general, a more walkable region may be considered more pedestrian friendly, more appealing to pedestrians, etc.
In one approach, walkability may be measured based on subjective opinions or impressions of pedestrians in a particular neighborhood or community. Such opinions may be collected by, for example, surveying pedestrians and/or residents that use a particular neighborhood/community. In some cases, such survey results may be quantified, so as to provide a numerical measure of walkability for a region. Such a numerical measure of walkability may be compared to a corresponding numerical measure for another neighborhood/community. This subjective approach may suffer from various inefficiencies and/or inaccuracies, such as the time and/or cost required to perform surveys, the number of pedestrians that need to be surveyed to obtain statistically significant results, etc.
In another approach, walkability may be measured based on various objective aspects associated with a particular region. For example, the topology, elements, and/or physical aspects of a given transportation network (e.g., roads, sidewalks, etc.) may be characterized based on qualities that are believed to provide a pedestrian-friendly environment, such as the connectedness of roads, the availability of crosswalks, the presence of sidewalks, etc. However, while such an approach may provide an insight into how easy it is for a pedestrian to walk from one place to another, it does not consider whether any appealing destinations for the pedestrian actually exist. In other words, even the best transportation network may not be of much use to a pedestrian if there are a lack of worthwhile destinations, such as parks, schools, stores, etc.
In another objective approach, the number of businesses within a particular region may be tallied. Such an approach provides a measure of the volume or density of potentially appealing pedestrian destinations (e.g., shops, restaurants, etc.) in a region. However, this approach may provide measures that are skewed in favor of particular locales, such as high density urban centers. In addition, because such an approach treats all businesses equally, results may be skewed by the presence of businesses that are not actually appealing destinations for the typical pedestrian (e.g., auto repair shops).